Memorial  Day 

An  Interpretation 


An  Address 

By 

R.  D.  W.  Connor 

May  11,  1909 


MEMORIAL  DAY 

AN  INTERPRETATION 


AN  ADDRESS 

BY 

R.  D.  W.  CONNOR 

BEFORE 

THE  JOHN  W.  DUNHAM  CHAPTER  OF  THE 

UNITED  DAUGHTERS  OF  THE 

CONFEDERACY 


AT  WILSON,  NORTH  CAROLINA 
MAY    II,  1909 


FDWABD8  4   BROUGHTON  PRINTING  CO..   RAIEIGM,  N.  C. 


Printed  and  Distributed  by 

HENRY  G.  CONNOR 

as  a  Tribute 

to  the  Soldiers  of  the  Confederacy 

from  Wilson  County, 

North  Carolina 


DEDICATED 
TO  THE 

MEN  OF  WILSON  COUNTY 

SOLDIERS 

IN 

"THE  WAR  BETWEEN  THE  STATES" 

1861-1885 

In  war,  brave  and  faithful 

In  peace,  loyal  and  law-abiding 

Patriotic,  always 


V 
W 


"WHO  SAVES  HIS  COUNTRY  SAVES  HIMSELF,  SAVES  ALL 
THINGS,  AND  ALL  THINGS  SAVED  DO  BLESS  HIM.  WHO  LETS 
HIS  COUNTRY  DIE  LETS  ALL  THINGS  DIE,  DIES  HIMSELF 
IGNOBLY,  AND  ALL  THINGS  DYING  CURSE  HIM."— BENJAMIN 
H.  HILL. 


Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation 


In  the  midst  of  an  age  inspired  with  the  spirit  of  a  living 
Present,  and  cheered  with  the  hopefulness  of  those  who 
fight  and  win,  we  pause  to-day  to  commune  for  a  brief 
moment  with  a  Past  that  is  dead,  and  to  pay  tribute  to  the 
memory  of  those  who  fought  and  lost.  Truly  a  paradoxical 
situation !  And  yet,  perhaps,  not  so  very  paradoxical  after 
all,  for  these  Memorial  Day  ceremonies  have  a  much  deeper 
meaning  than  may  at  first  appear.  The  Past  is  dead,  and 
yet  it  lives ;  our  fathers  lost,  and  yet  they  won.  And  to-day 
we  come  to  review  not  the  dead,  but  the  living  Past ;  to 
commemorate  not  the  defeat,  but  the  victory  of  the  van- 
quished. Looking  back  over  the  Past  we  see  in  the  Amer- 
ican Civil  War,  underneath  all  the  blare  of  bugles  and  the 
roar  of  cannon,  the  conflict  of  two  great  ideas.  Behind  the 
Stars  and  Stripes  of  Lincoln  and  Grant  we  see  arrayed  the 
idea  of  Nationality ;  behind  the  Stars  and  Bars  of  Davis 
and  Lee,  the  idea  of  sovereign  Statehood.  Looking  out  into 
the  Future  we  see  the  day  when  the  historian,  coming  to 
pronounce  his  judgment  on  the  results  of  that  conflict,  will 
declare  that  in  the  end  both  ideas  were  triumphant,  for  out 
of  that  struggle  came  a  more  perfect  and  a  more  enduring 
Union,  and  out  of  it  came  a  freer  and  a  nobler  State.  Now 
happily  no  longer  in  conflict,  State  and  Union  move  along 
their  destined  paths  to  a  common  heritage  of  liberty  and 
truth  and  justice  for  all  mankind.  In  this  happy  consum- 
mation both  Federal  and  Confederate  have  their  allotted 
parts  to  play. 

The  Confederate  soldier,  as  I  have  said,  represented  the 
idea  of  sovereign  Statehood.  In  defense  of  this  idea  thou- 
sands of  men  died  on  the  field  of  battle;  and  for  it  to-day 


G  Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation. 

other  thousands  rejoice  in  an  opportunity  to  live.  What 
then  is  this  thing  for  which  men  are  so  willing  to  give  their 
lives  ?  What  do  we  mean  by  the  State  ?  By  the  State  I 
mean  something  more  than  acres  of  land  and  millions  of 
people ;  something  more  than  constitutions  and  laws,  than 
governors  and  legislatures,  than  courts  and  constables  and 
prisons.  I  mean  something  more  than  material  wealth  and 
political  power.  The  State  of  North  Carolina  is  not  the 
fifty-two  thousand  square  miles  of  territory  lying  between 
Virginia  and  South  Carolina,  the  Atlantic  and  the  Blue 
Ridge ;  nor  is  it  the  two  millions  of  people  whose  homes 
are  here.  The  State  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  capitol  at 
Raleigh,  nor  in  the  court-houses  of  our  ninety-eight  counties. 
Soil  and  climate,  field  and  forest,  rivers  and  mountains,  mills 
and  factories,  cottages  and  mansions,  schools  and  churches, — 
all  these  are  but  outward  and  visible  forms  of  the  real,  living 
State.  The  first  white  men  who  settled  on  our  shores  three 
hundred  years  ago  found  the  same  fifty-two  thousand  square 
miles  of  territory  stretching  out  before  them ;  the  same  rivers 
pouring  their  waters  into  the  same  sea;  the  same  mountain 
ranges  lifting  their  lofty  peaks  up  into  the  same  blue  sky. 
They  found  forests  growing  then  as  they  grow  now.  They 
cleared  fields  and  built  houses.  They  too  had  a  constitu- 
tion and  laws,  a  governor  and  a  law-making  body.  All  these 
things  they  had  in  substance  as  we  have  them  now.  They 
had  the  possibilities  of  a  State,  but  they  did  not  have  the 
State  itself,  much  less  did  they  have  the  State  of  North 
Carolina  to  which  we  acknowledge  allegiance.  If  these 
things  constituted  the  real  State,  it  would  be  but  a  dead  thing, 
the  same  yesterday,  to-day  and  forever. 

But  the  State  is  not  a  dead  thing.  It  is  a  living,  breathing, 
changing  organism,  never  to-day  what  it  was  yesterday,  and 
never  to  be  to-morrow  what  it  is  to-day.     The  State  of  1909 


Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation.  7 

is  not  the  State  of  1809.  Every  generation  in  the  Past  has 
added  its  contribution,  modifying  its  character  and  changing 
its  ideals ;  and  every  generation  in  the  Future  must  con- 
tribute something  for  good  or  ill.  As  Dr.  Mclver  used  to 
say  :  "Sometimes  we  think  it  is  a  pity  that  a  good  man 
who  has  learned  to  be  of  service  to  his  fellows  should  be 
called  out  of  the  world.  So  sometimes  we  may  think  about 
an  enterprising  and  useful  generation ;  but  after  all  the 
generations  of  men  are  but  relays  in  civilization's  march 
on  its  journey  from  savagery  to  the  millennium.  Each 
generation  owes  it  to  the  Past  and  to  the  Future  that  no 
previous  worthy  attainment  or  achievement,  whether  of 
thought  or  deed  or  vision,  shall  be  lost.  It  is  also  under 
the  highest  obligation  to  make  at  least  as  much  progress  on 
the  march  as  has  been  made  by  any  generation  that  has 
gone  before."  In  the  contributions  of  all  the  generations 
that  have  gone  before  us,  and  in  the  contributions  that  we 
shall  make  to  the  generations  that  shall  come  after  us,  we 
find  the  real  State. 

Let  us  suppose  it  were  possible  to  blot  out  of  our  life 
all  the  story  of  the  Past ;  all  memory  of  the  men  and  events, 
the  thoughts  and  ideals  that  have  made  us  what  we  are  to- 
day ;  all  record  of  the  purposes  and  the  sufferings  of  those 
who  planted  the  first  colony  on  the  banks  of  the  Albemarle ; 
all  knowledge  of  their  long  struggle  to  rescue  that  region 
from  savage  beasts  and  barbarous  men ;  all  memory  of  the 
ambitions  and  the  ideals  that  inspired  them  in  their  battles 
for  independence  and  self-government ;  all  record  of  their 
plans  and  labors  to  build  here  a  free,  happy  and  prosperous 
commonwealth,  all  the  story  of  their  heroic  struggle  to  main- 
tain its  sovereignty  and  to  defend  it  from  invasion ;  all 
knowledge  of  the  motives  and  purposes  that  nerved  them  in 
their  efforts  to  reconstruct  it  on  a  broader  and  a  nobler  plan ; 


8  Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation. 

suppose  we  should  lose  out  of  our  life  all  our  fathers'  ideals 
of  liberty  and  law,  all  memory  of  their  successes  and  fail- 
ures, their  hopes  and  ambitions,  their  customs,  traditions 
and  history, — what  would  we  have  left  of  the  State  which  they 
founded  ?  A  vain,  hollow,  empty  thing,  dead  materialism, 
not  the  State  which  commands  our  allegiance  and  our  serv- 
ice. That  State  we  find  in  the  hearts  and  minds  of  the 
people ;  in  all  they  have  been  in  the  Past ;  in  all  they  are 
in  the  Present ;  in  all  they  hope  to  be  in  the  Future ;  in  the 
memories  of  the  men  and  events  by  which  in  peace  and  in 
war,  in  the  council  chamber  and  on  the  battle-field,  we  have 
won  our  place  among  the  people  of  the  American  Union ; 
in  the  ideals  upon  which  the  State  was  founded  by  the 
fathers,  and  in  the  aspirations  that  stir  in  us  a  desire  to  serve 
the  State  and  worthily  to  maintain  what  they  have  nobly 
secured. 

Such  was  the  Confederate  soldier's  conception  of  the  State, 
and  as  it  was  his  duty  and  privilege  to  defend  it  so  it  is 
ours  to  preserve  and  hand  it  down  unimpaired  to  his  children 
forever.  For  this  purpose,  that  we  may  the  better  fulfill  this 
duty  and  annually  pass  in  review  what  the  State  has  been 
in  the  Past,  consider  what  it  is  in  the  present,  and  forecast 
what  we  shall  make  it  in  the  Future,  we  have  set  apart  this 
Memorial  Day  and  dedicated  it  to  the  study  of  the  State  and 
her  history. 

The  first  purpose  of  Memorial  Day,  then,  is  to  keep  fresh 
in  our  minds  what  the  State  has  been  in  the  Past,  and  surely 
it  would  be  hard  for  one  who  loves  his  State  to  find  a  more 
important  or  a  more  pleasing  task.  A  generation  ago  it  was 
a  favorite  boast  with  us  in  the  South  that  we  had  been  too 
busy  making  history  to  give  thought  to  writing  it.  But  when 
we  come  to  think  of  the  State  as  the  Confederate  poldier 
thought  of  it,  we  shall  understand  that  as  each  generation 


Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation.  9 

is  under  obligations  to  make  at  least  as  much  progress  on 
the  march  of  civilization  as  any  generation  that  has  gone 
before,  so  also  it  is  under  no  less  an  obligation  to  preserve 
the  record  of  its  progress  for  the  benefit  of  generations  that 
shall  come  after;  for  as  history  is  the  foundation  of  all 
knowledge,  and  the  measure  of  all  progress,  so  a  failure  to 
record  the  events  of  history  would  result  in  setting  each 
generation  back  to  the  point  from  which  its  predecessor 
started,  and  would  close  to  posterity  the  source  of  its  richest 
treasures.  Modesty  is  no  doubt  a  commendable  trait  in  the 
character  of  any  people,  but  a  sober,  reasonable  and  intelli- 
gent pride  in  the  achievements  of  one's  country  is  the  best 
incentive  to  public  virtue  and  real  patriotism;  and  a  people 
who  have  not  the  pride  to  record  their  history  will  not  long 
have  the  virtue  to  make  history  that  is  worth  recording. 

But  I  speak  now  of  a  State-pride  that  is  sober,  reasona- 
ble and  intelligent,  for  certainly  there  is  nothing  either  pa- 
triotic or  elevating  in  that  foolish,  extravagant  and  boastful 
pride  that  provoked  Kipling's  famous  prayer : 

"If  drunk  with  sight  of  power,  we  loose 
Wild  tongues  that  have  not  Thee  in  awe — 
Such  boastings  as  the  Gentiles  use, 
Or  lesser  breeds  without  the  law — 


For  frantic  boast  and  foolish  word, 
Thy  mercy  on  Thy  people,  Lord!  " 


Such  a  pride  develops  neither  virtue  nor  patriotism.  It 
only  excites  the  ridicule  of  the  world,  and  brings  shame  on 
the  good  name  of  the  State.  It  places  false  values  on 
unworthy  things,  and  degrades  the  character  of  the  people. 
It  produces  the  self-contentment  of  "provincial  complacency," 
and  destroys  manly  vigor  and  ambition.  It  is  to  be  avoided 
as  the  worst  enemy  of  true  State-pride.  Rather  let  us  use 
Memorial  Day  to  cultivate  a  sober  pride  of  country,  which 


10  Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation. 

holding  itself  in  proper  reserve  ever  stands  guard  over  the  true 
honor  and  welfare  of  the  State ;  a  reasonable  pride  of  country, 
which  knowing  the  difference  between  the  good  and  the  evil, 
the  true  and  the  false,  the  beautiful  and  the  ugly  in  the 
life  of  the  State  will  accept  the  one  and  reject  the  other; 
an  intelligent  pride  of  country,  which  desiring  to  serve  the 
State,  will  follow  the  injunction  of  England's  great  lau- 
reate : 

"Love  thou  thy  land,  with  love  far-brought 
From  out  the  storied  Past,  and  used 
Within  the  Present,  but  transfused 
Thro'  future  time  by  power  of  thought." 

.Nothing  will  produce  better  results  among  a  self-governing 
people  than  the  cultivation  of  such  a  pride  in  the  achieve- 
ments of  their  country.  The  great  events  in  the  history  of 
such  a  country  are  the  achievements  of  the  people  themselves. 
A  Russian  czar  may  issue  his  decree  bestowing  the  privilege 
of  a  free  Parliament  on  his  subjects  and  is  entitled  to  claim 
all  the  credit  as  his  own ;  but  when  an  American  Congress 
promulgates  a  Declaration  of  Independence,  or  an  American 
president  emancipates  three  millions  of  slayes,  it  is  not  the 
Congress  nor  the  President,  but  the  people  themselves  who 
speak.  The  Confederate  soldier  who  answered  the  call  of 
his  country  in  1861,  and  through  four  long  years  of  war 
wrote  his  unsurpassed  record  of  devotion  to  duty,  of  courage 
in  the  field,  of  endurance  in  suffering,  of  patience  in  defeat, 
of  fidelity  in  tempation,  of  loyalty  in  the  hour  of  trial,  won 
for  himself  a  place  in  history  beside  the  imperial  legionary 
of  Caesar  and  the  old  guardsman  of  Napoleon ;  but  the  glory 
of  the  Roman  legionary  and  the  glory  of  the  French  guards- 
man belong  to  them  alone,  the  glory  of  the  Confederate  sol- 
dier belongs  to  his  country.  So  too  the  great  men  in  a  Repub- 
lic of  self-governing  people  spring  from  among  the  people 


Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation.  11 

themselves,  and  in  a  Republic  no  man  is  counted  great  by 
the  accident  of  birth,  but  only  by  reason  of  eminent  services 
to  his  fellow  countrymen.  Every  man  feels,  therefore,  that 
what  other  men  have  been  and  done,  he  himself  may  be  and 
do.  The  fame  of  a  Caesar  or  a  Napoleon  is  his  own  ■  but 
the  fame  of  Lincoln  and  Davis,  of  Lee  and  Grant,  of  Mc- 
Clellan  and  Jackson,  belongs  to  the  American  people.  When, 
therefore,  we  turn  aside  from  our  daily  affairs  to  commem- 
orate the  great  events  in  our  history,  it  is  but  an  endeavor 
on  our  part  to  take  an  inventory  of  the  best  that  we  ourselves 
have  been  able  to  contribute  to  the  making  of  the  State;  and 
when  we  offer  tribute  to  the  great  men  of  the  State,  we  simply 
pay  tribute  to  the  highest  types  that  we  ourselves  have  been 
able  to  develop,  for  our  own  character  is  reflected  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  men  whose  memories  we  revere,  whose  lives  we 
study,  and  whose  virtues  we  admire. 

This,  then,  is  the  meaning  of  Memorial  Day  as  it  relates 
to  the  State  of  the  Past.  From  this  study  of  our  con- 
tributions to  the  State  of  the  Past  we  shall  draw  experience 
and  inspiration  for  our  contributions  to  the  State  of  the 
Present.  For,  in  a  free  State,  not  only  the  demands  of 
patriotism,  but  also  the  qualifications  of  good  citizenship 
require  that  those  who  control  and  direct  the  affairs  of  the 
State  shall  be  familiar  with  the  ideas  and  events  that  have 
shaped  its  destiny.  In  such  a  State  every  citizen  is  a  direc- 
tor in  its  affairs,  and  from  time  to  time  is  called  upon  to 
decide  great  questions  that  will  affect  the  welfare  of  the 
remotest  posterity.  In  his  hands  he  holds  the  fate  of  politi- 
cal parties,  he  controls  public  policies,  he  formulates  social 
creeds,  he  solves  educational  problems,  he  detenu- ne-s  great 
industrial  issues; — in  a  word,  he  forms  public  opinion,  and 
in  free  States  public  opinion  rules  politicians,  governs  social 
conduct,  regulates  industrial  affairs,   and  shapes  the  desti- 


12  Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation. 

nies  of  the  people.  This  much  at  least  every  citizen  must 
pay  for  the  privilege  of  his  citizenship,  and  if  he  is  a  patri- 
otic citizen,  intent  upon  the  conscientious  performance  of  his 
duty,  he  needs  as  the  foundation  stone  of  his  citizenship,  a 
knowledge  of  the  Past. 

But  men  say,  the  Past  is  dead ;  and  we  are  practical  men 
who  live  in  the  Present.  What  need  have  we  for  the  dead 
Past?  The  Past  is  not  dead.  "The  roots  of  the  Present 
lie  deep  in  the  Past,  and  nothing  in  the  Past  is  dead  to 
the  man  who  would  understand  how  the  Present  came  to  be 
what  it  is."  The  Present  was  born  of  the  Past  and  is  the 
parent  of  the  Future.  Every  problem  which  this  prad  iea!  man 
is  called  upon  to  solve  comes  to  him  out  of  the  Past,  moulded 
into  shape  by  its  influence  and  charged  with  its  spirit.  If 
your  problem  be  to  choose  between  candidates  for  public  oince, 
can  you  not  choose  the  better  for  a  knowledge  of  their  Past  ? 
If  it  be  to  remodel  an  institution,  can  you  not  perform  your 
task  more  intelligently  if  you  know  how  the  institution  was 
formed  and  whence  it  grew  ?  If  it  be  to  formulate  a  social 
creed,  can  you  not  proceed  more  wisely  if  you  are  familiar  with 
the  fifty  social  creeds  that  have  arisen  and  vanished  before  ? 
If  it  be  to  determine  an  educational  policy,  can  you  not  act 
more  advisedly  after  investigating  an  hundred  policies  that 
have  been  put  to  the  test?  If  it  be  to  settle  an  industrial 
issue,  can  you  not  decide  it  more  safely  if  you  know  its 
origin  and  the  history  of  its  growth  ?  To  put  these  ques- 
tions is  to  answer  them.  And  yet  how  often  do  even  wise 
men  overlook  this  truth,  and  consulting  their  invention  and 
rejecting  their  experience,  blunder  along  in  their  blindness 
until  they  find  that  every  step  taken  in  advance  seems  to  be 
hurled  back  by  some  silent  and  unnoticed  power,  and  their 
enthusiasm  gives  way  to  despair  and  their  hopes  fade  into 
recollections.     Frederic  Harrison  puts  a  very  pertinent  and 


Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation.  13 

practical  question,  then,  when  he  asks :  "What  is  this  unseen 
power  which  seems  to  undo  the  best  human  efforts,  as  if  it 
were  some  overbearing  weight  against  which  no  man  can 
struggle  ?  What  is  this  ever-acting  force  which  seems  to  re- 
vive the  dead,  to  restore  what  we  destroy,  to  renew  forgotten 
watchwords,  exploded  fallacies,  discredited  doctrines,  and  con- 
demned institutions;  against  which  enthusiasm,  intellect, 
truth,  high  purpose,  and  self-devotion  seem  to  beat  them- 
selves to  death  in  vain  ?  It  is  the  Past.  It  is  the  accumulated 
wills  and  works  of  all  mankind  around  us  and  before  us. 
It  is  civilization.  It  is  that  power  which  to  understand  is 
strength,  which  to  repudiate  is  weakness."1 

Surely  no  people  in  all  the  history  of  the  world  have  had 
more  reason  to  be  impressed  with  these  truths  than  we  Ameri- 
cans of  the  Southern  States.  We  have  seen  a  triumphant 
people,  flushed  with  victory  and  drunk  with  power,  attempt 
to  remodel  every  institution  of  these  states  in  defiance  of  all 
the  lessons  of  ten  centiiries  of  English  history.  We  have 
seen  them  erect  a  political  structure  that  turned  back  the 
wheel  of  time  a  thousand  years.  We  have  seen  them  formu- 
late a  social  creed  that  flew  into  the  face  of  all  civilization. 
We  have  seen  them  plan  an  industrial  scheme  that  gave  the 
lie  to  the  teachings  of  history  throughout  the  ages.  And  we 
have  seen  them  all,  institutions,  political  structure,  social 
ideals,  and  industrial  schemes,  though  supported  by  the  arms 
of  a  victorious  nation,  rise  in  the  night  only  to  fall  crushed 
and  destroyed  in  the  day,  leaving  as  their  contributions  to  the 
State  naught  but  the 

".         .         .        .        sword  and  fire, 
Eed  ruin,  and  the  breaking  up  of  Jaws." 

Crushed  and  destroyed,  not  because  they  were  evil,  evil 
though  they  were,  but  destroyed  because  they  were  not  born 


1  Frederic  Harrison's  Meaning  of  History  has  been  a  fruitful  source  of 
suggestion  in  the  preparation  of  this  address. 


14  Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation. 

of  the  Past.  The  best  work  of  some  of  the  truest  reformers 
in  the  history  of  the  world  has  not  been  exempt  from  a  similar 
fate.  Indeed,  the  whole  path  of  civilization  is  strewn  with  the 
wrecks  of  institutions,  social  and  religious  creeds,  political 
and  industrial  schemes,  to  which  millions  looked  for  the  cure 
of  all  human  ills  and  upon  which  they  founded  their  hopes 
of  human  happiness — wrecked  because  their  roots  were  not 
sunk  deep  in  the  teachings  of  the  Past.  The  Past  is  the 
conservative,  steadying,  guiding  power  in  the  Present;  and 
the  Present  without  the  influence  of  the  Past  would  be  as 
unsteady  in  its  motions,  as  helpless  to  guide  its  course,  and 
as  uncertain  of  its  goal  as  a  ship  without  sails,  ballast  or 
rudder.  ISTo  pilot  is  fit  to  be  entrusted  with  control  of  a  ship 
who  is  ignorant  of  his  chart,  and  no  crew  who  are  indifferent 
to  their  chart  need  hope  to  reach  their  haven  safely :  so  no 
man  is  fit  to  be  entrusted  with  control  of  the  Present  who  is 
ignorant  of  the  Past,  and  no  people  who  are  indifferent  to 
their  Past  need  hope  to  make  their  Future  great. 

For  this  State  of  the  Future  Memorial  Day  has  a  yet 
deeper  meaning.  Paradoxical  as  this  may  seem,  it  is  yet 
necessarily  true.  All  our  aims  and  ambitions  and  hopes  look 
to  the  Future.  That  State-pride  which  the  study  of  the  Past 
cultivates,  is  a  meaningless  vanity  if  it  does  not  inspire  in 
us  high  and  splendid  ideals  for  the  State  of  the  Future. 
That  equipment  for  service  which  such  study  develops,  has 
but  little  purpose  if  it  does  enable  us  the  better  to  realize  those 
ideals.  If  we  shall  find  that  the  contributions  made  by  our 
fathers  to  the  State  of  the  Past  were  good,  shall  we  not 
resolve  that  our  contributions  to  the  State  of  the  Future  shall 
be  better  ?  If  we  shall  find  that  they  have  left  to  us  a  noble 
heritage,  shall  we  not  determine  to  leave  to  our  children  a 
yet  richer  legacy  ?  If  we  shall  find  that  they  were  ready 
without  thought  of  self  to  bear  the  burdens  of  the  State  and 


Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation.  15 

equipped  to  do  its  service,  shall  we  falter  because  we  too 
have  burdens  to  bear  and  services  to  perform  ?  No  State  ever 
called  her  people  into  her  service  with  greater  confidence  in 
their  spirit  of  willingness  and  determination  than  North 
Carolina  in  1861 ;  and  no  people  ever  responded  with  a  more 
absolute  forgetfulness  of  self  in  their  duty  to  theii  country. 

In  like  manner  the  State  of  the  Future  is  calling  us  into 
her  service;  and  shall  we  not  respond  in  like  spirit?  JSTo 
invading  foe  threatens  us  with  a  foreign  tyranny,  no  bugle 
calls  us  to  arms  in  her  defense ;  but  there  are  other  tyrannies 
none  the  less  oppressive,  other  duties  none  the  less  important. 
There  is  the  tyranny  of  ignorance,  the  tyranny  of  poverty, 
the  tyranny  of  a  backward  industrial  life,  the  tyranny  of 
prejudice,  the  tyranny  of  intolerance.  There  are  schools  to 
be  supported,  resources  to  be  developed,  fields  to  be  cultivated, 
prejudices  to  be  overthrown,  truth  and  justice  to  be  estab- 
lished: — all  great  problems  that  have  come  to  us  out  of  the 
Past.  What  then  has  the  Past  to  teach  us  with  regard  to 
their  solution  ? 

The  Past  will  teach  us  that  since  the  dawn  of  civilization, 
Ignorance  has  contributed  nothing  to  the  progress  of  man- 
kind or  the  amelioration  of  his  condition.  Hence  we  shall 
learn  that  the  supreme  duty  of  the  State  of  the  Future  is  the 
education  of  her  children: — not  some  of  her  children,  but 
every  child  of  them,  without  regard  to  its  sex  or  condition, 
its  wealth  or  poverty,  its  race  or  color.  Ignorance  is  no  re- 
specter of  persons.  It  chooses  its  agents  regardless  of  their 
race,  color  or  previous  condition  of  servitude.  It  is  thor- 
oughly democratic.  It  strikes  through  the  ruler  in  the  seat 
of  power;  it  strikes  through  the  money  king  on  his  throne 
of  gold ;  it  strikes  through  the  beggar  on  the  street.  It  is  as 
blind  as  justice  itself.  The  scholar  in  his  study,  the  man 
with  the  hoe,  the  banker  and  the  merchant,  the  manufacturer 


16  Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation. 

and  the  mechanic,  the  editor  and  the  teacher,  the  lawyer  and 
the  farmer,  all  feel  the  deadening  effects  of  its  blows,  and 
everywhere  they  fall  they  leave  behind  a  trail  of  poverty  and 
failure  and  suffering.  It  flaunts  itself  in  our  faces  to-day 
with  all  the  arrogance  of  long  entrenched  power,  and  dares 
us  to  more  terrific  battles,  and  invites  us  to  more  glorious 
victories  than  were  ever  won  by  the  Confederate  soldier. 
And  as  the  State  of  the  Past  called  to  our  fathers  in  the 
sixties,  so  the  State  of  the  Future  is  calling  to  us  to-day: 
"Bring  up  all  your  corps  of  truth  and  light  and  power.  Open 
all  your  batteries  and  sound  the  onset,  for  the  conflict  is  now 
on  with  the  enemy.  The  powers  of  ignorance  and  darkness 
are  arrayed  against  us,  and  the  fight  must  be  to  a  finish." 

The  Past  will  teach  us  that  material  resources — unlimited 
water-power,  boundless  forests,  inexhaustible  minerals,  fertile 
soil,  and  genial  climate — contribute  nothing  to  the  wealth  or 
the  power  of  a  people  who  do  not  know  how  to  use  them. 
Gettysburg  and  Appomattox  taught  this  lesson  with  fearful 
emphasis.  For  behind  the  armies  of  the  South  were  neglected 
fields,  unopened  mines,  impassable  highways,  unexplored  for- 
ests, and  rivers  that  sent  their  waters  unfettered  to  the  sea; 
behind  the  armies  of  the  North  were  farms  that  intelligent 
labor  had  converted  into  blooming  gardens,  rivers  that  had 
been  harnessed  to  the  spindle  and  the  loom,  mines  that  had 
been  made  to  yield  up  their  secret  treasures,  forests  that  gave 
their  timbers  to  be  fashioned  into  a  thousand  useful  forms, 
and  great  arteries  of  trade  and  commerce  that  carried  life 
and  vigor  into  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  country.  In  1865, 
the  armies  of  Lee  and  Johnston  surrendered,  not  to  the 
armies  of  Grant  and  Sherman  who  faced  them  on  the  fields 
of  Virginia  and  Carolina,  but  to  the  mills  and  factories 
that  dotted  the  river  banks  of  New  England,  to  the  open 
mines  that  poured  their  riches  into  the  laps  of  California  and 


Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation.  17 

Pennsylvania,  to  the  railroads  and  highways  that  brought 
the  produce  of  the  world  to  the  doors  of  New  York  and 
Chicago  and  Philadelphia.  History  teaches  no  lesson  more 
forcibly  than  the  lesson  that  Providence  does  not  long  tolerate 
a  people  who  neglect  the  gifts  of  Nature.  And  so  in  the 
State  of  the  Future,  before  we  can  come  into  our  inheritance, 
we  too  must  learn  how  to  harness  the  waters  of  our  streams  to 
the  wheels  of  mills  and  factories,  how  to  go  down  into  the 
bowels  of  the  earth  and  bring  up  the  hidden  treasures,  how  to 
penetrate  the  depths  of  the  forests  and  take  out  the  timbers 
with  foresight  and  intelligence,  how  to  tunnel  the  mountain 
and  bridge  the  gorge  for  great  railroads  and  highways  of  com- 
merce and  travel, — in  a  word,  we  must  learn  how  to  use  the 
natural  wealth  that  a  generous  Creator  has  poured  into  our 
lap,  or  become  the  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water 
for  those  who  do  know  how  to  use  them. 

The  Past  will  teach  us  that  no  State  ever  grew  strong  or 
prosperous  except  through  the  strength  and  prosperity  of  the 
great  toiling  masses  of  its  people.  Hence  we  shall  learn  that 
in  the  State  of  the  Future,  the  eighty  per  cent  of  her  people 
who  cultivate  the  soil,  and  not  the  twenty  per  cent  who  live 
in  towns,  will  determine  her  power  and  wealth.  The  great 
economic  problem  of  this  State,  then,  as  Mr.  Poe  puts  it, 
is  not  the  building  of  towns  and  cities,  but  the  increasing  of 
the  earning  capacity  of  her  average  farm  at  least  $500  a  year, 
thus  giving  to  it  a  productive  power  equal  to  the  farms  in 
other  sections  of  our  common  country.  In  order  to  accom- 
plish this,  as  Dr.  Knapp  says :  "We  must  rebuild  our  wasted 
soils ;  restore  the  valuable  woods  to  our  forests ;  construct 
economic  and  enduring  highways ;  substitute  in  the  country 
substantial  structures  of  brick  or  stone  for  our  frail  tene- 
ment of  wood ;  the  meadows  must  send  their  fragrance  to  the 
valleys ;  the  fruit  trees  must  cover  the  hilltops  with  bloom ; 
the  schoolhouse,  the  church  and  the  factory  must  gladden  the 


18  Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation. 

view  from  every  summit.  We  must  build  a  more  complete 
and  enduring  rural  civilization  where  strong  and  vigorous 
manhood  is  reared  and  where  the  purest  and  rarest  forms  of 
womanhood  are  in  bloom.  *  *  *  Every  idle  acre  of  land 
must  be  made  to  produce ;  every  idle  man  and  woman  must 
be  drafted  into  the  army  of  toil ;  extravagance  and  waste  must 
cease;  intelligence  must  dominate  matter;  and  universal 
vigor  must  take  up  the  tasks  of  general  frailty."1  Our  in- 
dustrial Lees  and  Jacksons  must  lead  their  armies  of  toilers 
against  the  foes  that  are  beating  back  from  the  rural  sections 
the  comforts  and  conveniences  and  pleasures  of  modern  life. 
The  Past  will  teach  us  that  "the  supreme  test  of  natural  as 
well  as  individual  virtue  is  not  prowess  in  combat,  but  what 
the  victor  does  to  the  vanquished  after  the  conquest  is  over, 
what  the  strong  do  to  the  weak  who  have  fallen  under  their 
power."  In  the  State  of  the  Future  we  shall  have  to  deal 
with  a  weaker  race  who  have  fallen  under  our  power,  and  as 
sure  as  there  is  a  God  of  Nations  who  holds  the  fate  of 
States  in  His  hands,  so  surely  will  He  call  us  to  an  account 
of  our  guardianship  of  this  child  of  Nature.  Let  us  beware 
lest  in  our  dealings  with  him  pride  and  prejudice  and  pas- 
sion shall  usurp  the  place  of  kindness  and  sympathy  and 
justice.  He  knows  but  little  of  the  checks  and  balances  of 
human  society  who  does  not  know  that  if  the  strong  do  not 
pull  up  the  weak,  the  weak  must  pull  down  the  strong;  and 
if  we  must  err,  far  better  for  us  if  we  err  on  the  side  of 
justice.  For,  says  a  distinguished  judge,  "on  our  capacity 
to  do  justice  to  them  [the  negroes]  in  private  dealing  as  well 
as  in  public  action  depend  in  a  large  degree  our  character  and 
future  life  as  a  people.  For  the  doing  of  injustice  is  more 
direful  in  its  effects  on  the  doer,  than  on  the  sufferer.  He  is 
no  patriot  who  does  not  stand  up  for  the  right  of  every  man 


1Dr.  Seaman  A.  Knapp  in  an  address  before  the  North   Carolina 
Teachers'  Assembly  at  Charlotte,  1908. 


Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation.  19 

"to  have  the  just  reward  of  his  labor,  to  have  the  right  of  trial 
for  his  life,  his  liberty  and  property  under  the  guidance  of 
the  law  of  the  land,  who  is  not  ready  to  breast  any  storm  to 
see  that  there  shall  be  one  law  for  the  weak  and  the  strong."1 
The  Past  will  teach  us  that  no  State  has  ever  survived  the 
assaults  of  time  that  was  not  built  on  the  solid  corner  stones  of 
truth  and  justice  and  equality  of  opportunity  for  all  men. 
We  shall  learn  too  that  there  can  be  no  truth  without  free- 
dom of  thought,  no  justice  without  freedom  of  discussion,  no 
equality  of  opportunity  without  freedom  of  action.  Every 
tyranny  that  has  oppressed  mankind  since  the  beginning  of 
history,  whether  it  be  the  tyranny  of  autocracy,  the  tyranny 
of  aristocracy,  or  the  tyranny  of  democracy,  nourished  on 
intolerance  of  free  thought,  on  suppression  of  free  speech, 
and  on  denial  of  free  action.  In  the  State  of  the  Future  wc 
must  set  our  faces  like  flint  against  every  tendency  to  en- 
courage those  servants  of  tyranny.  We  must  learn  to  ex- 
pose every  question  affecting  the  welfare  of  the  State  to  the 
searching  light  of  free  and  full  discussion,  and  to  abide  the 
judgment  of  the  people.  But  we  must  learn  also  that  hack- 
neyed oratory  is  not  discussion,  denunciation  is  not  criticism, 
license  is  not  freedom.  We  must  learn  that  judgments  ren- 
dered at  the  dictation  of  passion  and  prejudice  are  not  likely 
to  be  "true  and  righteous  altogether."  We  must  learn  that 
ideas  are  greater  than  persons,  and  principles  more  enduring 
than  personalities.  We  must  learn  that  as  true  liberty  is 
liberty  regulated  by  law,  so  nothing  is  more  important  to  the 
people  of  a  self-governing  State  than  that  stern  and  splendid 
regard  for  law  which  was  the  glory  of  Rome  in  her  best  days, 
and  without  which  no  people  can  be  truly  great  or  truly  free. 
And,  finally,  we  must  learn  that  while  eternal  vigilance  is 
the  price  of  liberty,  eternal  agitation  is  not  eternal  vigilance. 


1  Judge  C.  A.  Woods,  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  South  Carolina,  in  an 
address  before  the  North  Carolina  Bar  Association,  1908. 


20  Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation. 

Not  till  we  have  taken  these  lessons  to  heart  shall  the  door  of 
opportunity  be  thrown  wide  open  to  every  child  of  the  State ; 
not  till  then  shall  Justice  be  enthroned  in  all  the  beauty  of 
righteousness;  and  not  till  then  shall  "Truth,  shining  pa- 
tiently like  a  star,  bid  us  advance  and  we  will  not  turn  aside." 

To  educate  the  children  of  the  State,  to  develop  her  re- 
sources, to  revolutionize  her  industrial  and  agricultural  sys- 
tems, to  maintain  her  authority,  to  preserve  her  freedom, — 
these  are  great  problems  that  have  come  to  us  out  of  the 
Past;  to  solve  them  is  the  work  of  the  Future.  We  shall 
not  solve  them  without  the  expenditure  of  much  money  and 
toil  and  sacrifice.  But  to  this  labor  the  State  is  calling  her 
best  sons,  and  shall  we  shrink  from  her  call  ?  Consider  the 
Confederate  soldier.  The  one  sentiment  that  overshadowed 
all  others  in  his  heart  was  devotion  to  his  State.  For  the 
State  he  lived,  and  in  her  defense  he  went  forth  to  die.  He 
knew  no  duty  above  his  duty  to  the  State,  and  he  coveted  no 
honor  save  the  honor  of  the  State.  No  labor  was  too  hard, 
no  burden  too  heavy,  no  sacrifice  too  great  in  her  behalf. 
When  she  called  him  into  her  service,  he  invented  no  excuse, 
he  uttered  no  murmur,  he  asked  no  reward.  Inspired  by  his 
pride  in  her  achievements,  he  imagined  no  greater  joy  than 
to  share  in  the  brightness  of  her  glory;  and  warmed  by  her 
love,  he  sought  no  other  fate  than  to  go  down  with  her  in  the 
darkness  of  defeat.  If  in  the  same  spirit  we  too  shall  answer 
the  call  of  the  State  of  the  Future,  we  may  rest  assured  that 
we  shall  not  go  down  with  her  in  the  darkness  of  defeat,  but 
that  Ave  shall  rejoice  with  her  in  the  brightness  of  her  glory. 

Such,  then,  is  that  freer  and  nobler  State  that  came  trium- 
phant out  of  the  conflict  of  the  sixties.  Out  of  that  conflict 
came  also,  as  I  have  said,  a  more  perfect  and  a  more  endur- 
ing Union — a  Union  of  States,  not  of  sections ;  of  States 
sprung  from  a  common  source,  created  for  a  common  pur- 
pose,  and  builded   on   a  common  foundation ;   a   Union   of 


Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation.  21 

States  bound  together  by  the  history  and  traditions  of  a  com- 
mon Past,  united  in  the  work  of  a  common  Present,  and 
destined  to  the  glories  of  a  common  Future.  For  this  Union, 
Memorial  Day,  whether  it  honors  the  memory  of  those  who 
followed  Lee  or  the  memory  of  those  who  followed  Grant, 
has  its  final  and  deepest  meaning.  We  shall  not  come  to 
the  observance  of  Memorial  Day  in  the  right  spirit  if  our 
purpose  be  to  rekindle  the  fires  of  bitter  memories  or  of 
sectional  animosities.  But  rather  let  us  come  in  that  spirit 
which  declares :  "The  sons  will  preserve  and  will  mag- 
nify the  fame  of  their  fathers,  but  they  will  not  foster  or 

fight  over  again  their  feuds,  since  the  fathers  themselves 

long  ago  renounced  rancor  and  dissolved  differences 

We  will  filially  honor  the  shades  of  our  ancestors,  but  we  will 

not  cut  ourselves  among  their  tombs Our  fathers 

fought  out  the  questions  which  their  fathers  left  unsettled. 
We  recognize  and  rejoice  in  the  settlement  of  those  questions. 
But  we  are  resolved  that  neither  the  charm  of  historical 
study,  nor  the  passions,  nor  the  pathos  of  poetry,  nor  the  pious 
exaltation  which  shrines  excite  and  monuments  inspire  shall 
to-day  hold  back  Xorth  and  South  from  the  new  and  noble 
obligations,  and  from  the  benign  and  brotherly  competitions 
of  this  teeming  time.  Better  a  decade  of  love  and  peace  than 
a  cycle  of  the  mutilations  and  of  the  memories  of  the  Civil 
War."1 

In  such  a  spirit  the  Confederate  soldier,  after  four  long 
years  of  conflict,  submitted  to  the  judgment  of  the  God  of 
battles ;  and  in  such  a  spirit  the  Nation  will  yet  acknowledge 
the  great  debt  which  it  owes  to  him.  He  fought  the  war  in 
good  faith,  he  laid  down  his  arms  in  good  faith,  and  he  ac- 
cepted the  result  in  good  faith.  ISTo  apology  for  his  course 
arose  to  his  lips  to  belie  his  conscience ;  no  vain  regret  lin- 


*St.  Clair  McKelway,  in  an  address  before  The  Conference  for  Educa- 
tion in  the  South  at  Richmond,  Va.,  1903. 


22  Memorial  Day:  An  Interpretation. 

gered  in  his  heart  to  embitter  his  spirit.  He  turned  from 
the  battle-field  to  his  civic  duties  feeling  "malice  toward 
none,"  but  "charity  for  all" ;  ready  to  lend  his  hands  to  the 
task  of  binding  up  the  Nation's  wounds ;  and  determined  to 
contribute  by  voice  and  conduct  toward  establishing  and  cher- 
ishing a  just  and  lasting  peace  between  the  torn  and  bleeding 
sections.  Keeping  always  in  view  the  harmony,  peace  and 
happiness  of  the  whole  country,  joining  in  the  desire  of  all 
good  men  everywhere  to  hush  forever  the  passions  and  preju- 
dices of  civil  strife,  disdaining  to  renounce  his  own  faith  or 
principles  but  willing  to  trust  his  vindicaton  to 

"That  flight  of  ages  which  are  God's 
Own  voice  to  justify  the  dead," 

he  called  on  all  sections  of  his  country  to  ignore  sectional 
issues,  and  to  address  themselves  to  the  task  of  restoring  the 
Union  in  heart  and  soul.  The  wisdom  and  prudence,  the 
saneness  and  patience,  the  loyalty  and  patriotism  which  have 
characterized  his  course  since  the  war,  entitle  him  to  a  warm 
place  in  the  Nation's  heart  forever. 

And,  to-day,  as  we  gather  to  do  honor  to  his  memory,  shall 
we  not  resolve  to  follow  his  example  and  emulate  his  spirit  ?' 
Let  us  bury  forever  the  bitter  memories,  and  the  passions 
and  the  prejudices  left  in  the  wake  of  sectional  strife,  and 
join  heart  and  soul  with  all  throughout  our  common  country 
who  pay  tribute  to  those,  whatever  banner  they  may  have 
followed,  who  unselfishly  answered  the  call  of  duty  as  God 
gave  them  to  see  and  understand  it.  On  this  Memorial  Day, 
dear  to  our  hearts  for  the  memories  it  brings,  the  gallant 
spirits  of  Federal  and  Confederate,  who  so  freely  gave  of 
their  best  blood  in  the  service  of  their  country,  call  to  us  to 
give  as  freely  of  ourselves  to  our  great  reunited  Nation,  and 
in  the  service  of  that  Nation  to  think  the  highest  that  is  in  us 
to  think,  to  do  the  best  that  is  in  us  to  do,  and  to  be  the 
noblest  that  is  in  us  to  be. 


